It is time to really implement territorial cohesion and pay special attention to mountain areas, as emphasised in the article 174 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, reads a press release of Euromontana.

In June 2017, more than 100 mountain actors from all over Europe met in Brussels to participate in a conference on “Cohesion Policy in mountain areas: How to increase the contributions from mountains and benefits for mountain territories” co-organised by the European Commission and Euromontana.

This conference reflected on how to better develop a place-based and territorial integrated approach for the future Cohesion Policy and how this policy should address mountain specificities. “Cohesion Policy can do more than it currently does for their [mountains] development” explained Ms Iliana Iotova, Vice- President of the Republic of Bulgaria. Referring to a resolution of the European Parliament, passed with a large majority, she strongly supported the idea to have “an agenda for mountainous regions” that could be “at the heart of an EU strategy on the development of mountainous regions”. In addition, she suggested that mountain areas should have “the allocation of specific funds under Cohesion policy” and assured her support for the future: when Bulgaria has the Presidency of the Council in 2018, she will push for mountain areas to be one of the priorities.

Further actions could be to develop a specific macro-regional strategy for the Carpathians, better systematically assess the territorial impact of Cohesion policy in mountain areas, and develop cross- border Operational Programmes for some mountain ranges, stated Juanan Gutierrez, President of Euromontana.

Jean-Pierre Halkin, Head of Unit in DG Regio (European Commission) encouraged regions and Member States to better use the existing instruments, such as the Partnership Agreements with the Integrated Territorial Investment (ITI) tools or specific co-funding rates, for mountain areas. During the conference, some successful examples were presented. These include the dedicated Operational Programmes for the Massif Central and the Alps in France, the use of ITIs in Sterea Ellada, Greece, the Inner Areas Strategy in Italy, and EUSALP, the macro-regional strategy for the Alps.

Active, ambitious and targeted policies for mountain areas, which help these areas to overcome constraints in order to fully exploit their enormous potential, are much needed. Mountain areas “can bring political added value to Europe by giving economic added value to our territories” explained Ms Mercedes Bresso, Member of the European Parliament and Chairwoman of the RUMRA (Rural, Mountainous and Remote Areas) Intergroup of the European Parliament.

Mountain territories have a strong innovation and growth potential of key importance to the European Union’s 2020 Strategy and for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Several successful examples were presented during the conference, such as Tri Vallées which successfully collects and recycles ski material the French Alps, the Mountain Medecine Centre in Valle d’Aosta, Italy, which facilitates telemedicine and teleconsultations in mountain huts, and the ecological restoration of Comana Wetlands in Romania.

Raul Cazan, president of 2Celsius Network. Brussels, June 2017

Significant pressures, however, lie on mountain pristine ecosystems as well as on rural communities mostly in the Carpathian areas; European legislative loopholes allow for abuses related to unsustainable biomass exploitation as well as savage deforestations. Community targeted cohesion funds must empower people of the mountain and give them the option to strive there where their ancestors did for the last centuries, stressed Raul Cazan, president of 2Celsius.

The European Commission will begin to discuss the future Cohesion Policy with stakeholders at the Cohesion Forum on 26-27 June. Mountain people and administrations need to be strategically organised to make their voice better heard at the EU level. This conference was the first step to support a future Cohesion Policy that better taking the mountain specificities into account.

Euromontana calls upon all the organisations, especially the regions and Member States which participated in this conference, to show their support for a dedicated approach for mountain areas, including in the coming open consultation on the future Cohesion Policy. Finally, Euromontana commits itself to continue advocating for a Cohesion Policy that focuses more on territorial cohesion and fully takes the mountain specificities into account.

]]>http://2celsius.net/address-mountain-specificities-better-in-the-future-cohesion-policy/feed/0Will the Empire strike back in the next Dieselgate fight?http://2celsius.net/will-the-empire-strike-back-in-the-next-dieselgate-fight/
http://2celsius.net/will-the-empire-strike-back-in-the-next-dieselgate-fight/#respondTue, 09 May 2017 04:49:26 +0000http://2celsius.net/?p=1440by Julia Poliscanova

The battle over the EU’s response to the Dieselgate scandal is drawing to a close. It pits the rebels advocating for more effective controls (the European Commission and Parliament) against the regressive forces of the Empire (some national governments and the car industry), writes Julia Poliscanova.

The final battle lines are now being drawn between co-decision makers on the European Commission’s key proposals in response to the Dieselgate scandal. On one side sit the rebel forces of the Parliament and Commission, supported by NGOs and consumer organisations, advocating for more effective controls and oversight in the system of approving new cars for sale. On the opposing side are the regressive forces of the Empire: the governments which are supported by carmakers in their determination to maintain the status-quo.

It is approaching 18 months since the Commission proposed to reform the Type Approval and Market Surveillance Framework Regulation. It aimed to strengthen and bring consistency to the ways cars are approved and to increase transparency. In April, the Parliament finalised its constructive position under the unlikely champion of British ECR MEP Daniel (Han Solo) Dalton who strengthened the proposal of industry commissioner (Princess Leia) Bieńkowska. Now it’s the turn of member states to hammer out a deal in Council where the constructive Maltese presidency has its work cut out in finding a compromise. So far, governments have been dragging their feet, reluctant to disrupt their cosy relationship with carmaker. The brooding presence of the German Chancellor (Darth Vader) casts a shadow over the proceedings.

At the heart of the disagreements are how much influence the Commission can have to ensure that carmakers stick to the rules and that these are consistently applied by national approval authorities. The Parliament’s EMIS enquiry into the VW emissions scandal showed that member states have dismally failed to enforce the EU emissions rules. Instead of protecting the public and consumer interests, they treat approving cars as a commercial activity or as a means to give competitive advantage to home champions. Parliament wants independent audits and to give the Commission the power to remove the right to approve cars if a regulator consistently fails to apply the rules correctly. The Commission suggested a weak system of peer reviews; but Council has passed the buck to technical services, or the labs national regulators use to perform approval tests. Many member states want the ability to continue to turn a blind eye to unlawful practices when it suits them such as allowing cars to turn down exhaust controls at temperatures below 17°C so carmakers can fit cheaper systems.

Battles are also expected over whether the Commission should have powers to fine carmakers who have broken EU laws. The Parliament also wants the Commission to be able to levy fines of up to €30,000 per vehicle, similar to the powers of the US Environmental Protection Agency. So do some countries, notably France, the Netherlands, Denmark and Finland. But many countries, including Italy, Spain and Poland, are opposed; as is Germany although it has still not finalised its official position. Germany is reluctant to accept any of the new controls and proposed reforms. This leaves carmakers unlikely to be sanctioned (and therefore more likely to cheat) as national regulators do not impose sanctions themselves yet they refuse to concede this role to the Commission.

Despite the same defeat devices being used by the Volkswagen Group in Europe and the US, VW has not been fined by Germany. Meanwhile, Skoda has not been prosecuted by the UK, Audi by Luxembourg, or Seat by Spain (where those vehicles were approved). Without independent powers at an EU level to penalise carmakers, regulatory capture and stalemate on emissions manipulations will continue.

Member states have also deleted provisions to limit how long an approved car can continue to be sold for after new regulations come into force. This was introduced to close loopholes that allowed cars using ozone-busting refrigerants to continue to be sold years after the deadline to end their use. A key demand by carmakers, the loophole will in the future be used to allow grossly polluting dirty diesels to continue to be sold in their millions even after new real-world tests commence. New data by Emissions Analytics shows that the diesel cars sold across Europe in the last few months pollute even more than before.

By the time co-decision makers strike a final compromise more than two years will have passed since the VW scandal erupted in the US. The EU has the opportunity to demonstrate it is serious about applying its rules consistently across the union and creating a level playing field on which businesses fairly compete. Business should also know that if they cheat they will be penalised, as in the US. There are more than 29 million grossly polluting diesel cars on the EU’s roads that are the dominant source of urban air pollution that kills nearly half a million people annually.

If Europe cannot respond effectively to the Dieselgate scandal citizens will rightly ask in whose interests the single market and the Union really works: citizens or business? Will the rebel forces prevail or will the Empire strike back? The forthcoming Council meetings concluding with the Competitiveness Council on 29 May, at which the Council position will be finalised, will show who the Force is with.

Julia Poliscanova is clean vehicles and air quality manager at sustainable transport group Transport & Environment.

]]>http://2celsius.net/will-the-empire-strike-back-in-the-next-dieselgate-fight/feed/0Naomi Klein in Eastern Europe: Green tech leans towards decentralization away from state socialismhttp://2celsius.net/naomi-klein-on-eastern-europe-free-trade-prevents-acting-against-climate-change/
http://2celsius.net/naomi-klein-on-eastern-europe-free-trade-prevents-acting-against-climate-change/#respondThu, 09 Mar 2017 10:18:17 +0000http://2celsius.net/?p=1421In the wake of the heated talks on the CETA signing, Naomi Klein, at a short online meeting with her readers in Vilnius, Lithuania, brings about some radical perspective on how such trade deals can harm. To reassure her East European readers, she is also dissing centralized socialist/communist economies, stating that the green leap ahead is essentially decentralized and community empowering.

Canada is a little bit of a laboratory for this as we signed the first free trade deal of this kind with the United States in the mid ‘80s. Actually, the first free trade agreement was signed in 1988 and it, was extended into NAFTA (The North American Free Trade Agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America) in 1993. So Canada is the most sued nation in the world – based on free trade agreements. Just because we have been in this for a long time and we have been in it with the biggest bully, what we know in Canada is that these deals are very dangerous. They give tools to multinational corporations to sue national governments when they interfere with these companies’ beliefs that they have the right to earn maximum profits.

There are a couple of examples that we have experienced in Canada: first, the province of Quebec after much of citizens’ pressure was one of the first jurisdictions to ban fracking or to have a moratorium on fracking. And after that happened, a gas company that was actually Canadian registered in the US so that it could sue Canada – because under NAFTA a foreign company is able to sue the Government. CETA is very similar to NAFTA. So this gas company says that this fracking ban interferes with their right to frack for gas under the St. Lawrence River.

Lone Pine Resources Inc. vs. Quebec

The Lone Pine Resources investor-state challenge is proceeding. In September 2013, oil and gas company Lone Pine Resources filed a $250-million North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) lawsuit against Canada over Quebec’s moratorium on fracking for oil and gas underneath the St. Lawrence River. A tribunal was constituted in a case brought by Lone Pine Resources, Inc. under Chapter 11 the NAFTA.

Lone Pine Resources, which is based in Calgary, is using its incorporation in Delaware to access the investor rights chapter of NAFTA to challenge the Quebec moratorium in front of a paid, largely unaccountable investment tribunal.

Second, in the state of Ontario, the government introduced during the financial crisis of 2009 a piece of quite good climate legislation, which did bring together the need for jobs, the need for economic stimulus and the need to act on climate change into a holistic piece of policy. They got the trade unions on board with the environmentalists and that is hard to do. The piece of legislation had a feed-in tariff much like the German model, but it also had a requirement that whomever wanted to take advantage of the rates under the feed-in tariff in producing renewable energy, had to produce between 40 and 60% of their green technology in Ontario. So they had to be producing a certain percentage of the, say, solar panels and turbines in Ontario in order to stimulate the manufacturing sector, which at that time was suffering huge job losses. Ontario is dependent on a lot of automobile manufacturing and the auto sector, if you remember, in the financial crisis of 2008 declared bankruptcy (three of the main American auto producers).

Many of the laid-off autoworkers in Ontario, not because of climate policy, but because of mismanagement, were suddenly getting jobs making solar panels. A solar company actually opened up in closed down auto parts shop. So this is what we want, shift from a fossil fuel economy to green economy and bring the workers with us. And get out of this ‘jobs vs. the environment’ endless battle. And then, when there were created 31,000 jobs, which is very good for a state of the size of Ontario, we were taken to the World Trade Organization by Japan and the European Union. It was claimed that the requirement of making green technology in Ontario was a protectionist rule.

Ontario vs. WTO

The World Trade Organization has ruled in November 2012 that a critical component of Ontario’s green energy program breaches international trade law. WTO ruled it is not favorable to the domestic content requirements contained in Ontario’s so-called feed-in tariff program, the centerpiece of the green energy program that provides solar, wind and other renewable energy companies with long-term guaranteed revenue contracts.

Japan and the European Union filed complaints against Ontario, saying the province’s program broke international trade law by unfairly pressuring producers of clean energy to buy hardware and services from companies located in the province. Ontario’s Green Energy Act was $27-billion (EUR19 billion) worth of investment and created over 30,000 jobs. Currently Ontario is phasing out all its coal-fired power plants.

This is how these trade deals are penalizing governments for doing the right thing. It is also challenging in the US that has similar cases against China and India for their support for renewables. This impedes these massive emerging economies to leapfrog as quick as possible over fossil fuels and go straight into green tech. And this should be supported and not thwarted.

Is the answer lying in more government regulation, nationalizations, and planned economy? This brings up unpleasant memories in Eastern Europe. What is the alternative, not communist, but democratic?

There is a much more decentralized system that I am talking about, economically and politically. The exciting fact about green technology is that it leans itself towards decentralization in a way that is very different from fossil fuels. It is also a function of how these energies are. Fossil fuels are concentrated in specific locations- where the coal is, where the oil is, where the gas is. It is extremely expensive to get it out, it is expensive to transport it, also to refine it. And so, a system like that lends itself to a few monopolistic players leading to a huge amount of political corruption. We all know how oil and coal industries interfere with the political sphere. If we needed any further evidence of this, I would urge you to look at the new Secretary of State of the US. CEO of Exxon, I mean, we reached the complete integration between powerful concentrated industry and government. Their influence is outsized compared to their role in the economy.

In Canada, fossil fuel income is small percentage of our national GDP, but because fossil fuel industry has the largest companies in the country, they have a massive influence over our political process. So the point about renewables is that wind, sun, wave power is very very decentralized. I mean, there is sun everywhere, wind is all over, so we can design this energy system more properly, build in democratic economy, community control like on a commons model, as opposed to big state companies. We do not need them as they are needed for fossil fuels.

So there is an opportunity to build a more democratic economy than what it was under state socialism or state communism or capitalism/ corporatism, which is going on right now.

Together with trade unions and 220 groups such as Greenpeace, OXFAM or Black Lives Matter we created the Leap Manifesto that offers a bit of blueprint in matters of sustainable development. It has got 15 policy demands and they can easily be exported to Eastern Europe. It shows that it is possible to bring together the labor movement with the climate movement and human rights movement. It is not state communism that we are advocating, but it is a post-extractive economy that is based on the necessity to care for both humans and the Earth.

]]>http://2celsius.net/naomi-klein-on-eastern-europe-free-trade-prevents-acting-against-climate-change/feed/0Governments demand new EU vehicle safety rules to cut road deathshttp://2celsius.net/governments-demand-new-eu-vehicle-safety-rules-to-cut-road-deaths/
http://2celsius.net/governments-demand-new-eu-vehicle-safety-rules-to-cut-road-deaths/#respondThu, 16 Feb 2017 00:02:16 +0000http://2celsius.net/?p=1417Transport ministers from eight countries have united to demand new EU-wide standards for vehicle safety. Safer vehicles, such as trucks with improved direct vision to eradicate blind spots, need to be rolled out fast, the governments – which include those of France, Germany and Italy – told internal market commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska in a letter. In 2015, 26,000 Europeans died in traffic accidents but the number of fatalities has stagnated since 2013 – despite the EU demanding that member states halve the number of road deaths by 2020.

The ministers underlined the importance of truck safety, saying that improved truck design could save up to 900 lives a year through better direct vision as well as crash performance. They said the EU, which has exclusive competence on vehicle safety measures, must make a proposal “well before the end of 2017”.

Austria’s minister for transport, Jörg Leichtfried, said: “Truck design has huge potential for safety improvement, especially with regards to vulnerable road users. EU standards for direct vision and mandatory fitment of active safety technology such as camera systems that provide drivers with a 360° view around the vehicle could save lives. The review of the General Safety and Pedestrian Safety Regulations should therefore be a top priority for the European Commission.”

The ministers underlined the safety of cyclists and pedestrians especially in cities and called on the Commission to not wait any longer and make road and truck safety a priority, echoing an earlier call from London, Madrid, Copenhagen and Amsterdam for safer trucks. Only the EU can make safety technologies mandatory for new vehicles but the EU’s last vehicle safety law – the General Safety Regulation – dates back to 2009 and the Commission has repeatedly missed deadlines to review it.

The chair of the European Parliament transport committee, MEP Karima Delli, said: “Safety on roads is a top priority. The EU must do its part by mandating the roll out of the most effective safety technologies in our vehicles, which will protect pedestrians, cyclists and other road users. We have been waiting too long and expect a General Safety Regulation proposal that enables behavioural changes and allows new tools for digital assistance to drivers. We need this before the end of 2017 if we are to achieve our goal of zero road deaths a year.”

Stef Cornelis, safer and cleaner trucks officer at NGO Transport & Environment, said: “Support for a EU action on vehicle safety is overwhelming. In recent months city mayors, safety groups and now the biggest EU governments have called on the Commission to urgently mandate car and truck safety improvements that could save thousands of lives. The General Safety Regulation is a unique opportunity that shouldn’t go to waste.”

]]>http://2celsius.net/governments-demand-new-eu-vehicle-safety-rules-to-cut-road-deaths/feed/0Climate change dispels plants and humans to mountain heightshttp://2celsius.net/climate-change-dispels-plants-to-mountain-heights/
http://2celsius.net/climate-change-dispels-plants-to-mountain-heights/#respondSun, 05 Feb 2017 10:39:29 +0000http://2celsius.net/?p=1355Thistle is invading mountain clearings; little pines are growing amongst the high alpine rocks; flocks of cattle need to climb to high altitudes for good grazing grass and water. Rise in mean global temperature primarily affects plants and animals as they slowly “seek refuge” to higher altitudes. But it primarily affects thousands of mountain people, native or traditional communities that see their livelihoods changing at a fast pace. More discretely than polar ice caps, mountains are the barometers of runaway climate change.

“We already have stone pine trees on the peak of Clocher d’Arpette in the massif of Mont Blanc at 2800 meters (9200 ft.) altitude. They are taller than 1.5 meters (5 ft.), that is a significant height, so they could be considered trees,” states Cristophe Randin, research associate at the Center for High Altitude Research (CREA) in Chamonix, France.

Two decades ago such a statement would have been unconceivable or at least met with scepticism whilst today it is a trend in virtually all alpine regions of the world, Randin explains. Rising temperatures due to climate change seem to be the cause and, beyond ecological outcomes, they bring about social change, they affect businesses, communities, and, generally, mountain livelihood.

Plants are the first to adapt to the temperature increase; they change their seasonal cycles and slowly move upwards to better conditions of water, nutrients and temperature. These phenomena create different conditions for agriculture or animal husbandry at higher altitudes. And people follow plants.

“There is a link between this shift of grazers and cattle, on one hand, and climate change, on the other. All the upper limits of plant species are currently shifting to higher elevations because plants try to find and track their optimal climate conditions and, of course, this will trigger with the shift of cattle with this vegetation,” Randin says.

Shepherds, the ad-hoc scientists

Transylvanian shepherd. Photo: 2C

Information related to the upward shift of vegetation in the mountains, though non-scientific, lies with the pastoral communities, with shepherds that make a living herding the sheep or cattle on the mountain grazing lands. Carpathian shepherds have to take the cattle from lower altitudes towards higher ones.

“From 1,400 meters (4,600 ft.) […] we have to take them to 1,600 (5,250 ft.) or even 1,800 (5,900 ft.),” says Vlad Petru, a Romanian shepherd in the Transylvanian Alps. The higher pastures became richer in grass in the last two decades. “Yes, richer, but there is water there. And the climate is cooler; the heat here is too much,” says the shepherd.

Dry thistle “has climbed the mountain” in the last 20 years, Petru complains. It used to be lower, merely in the plough lands, he adds. He also observed for 17 years a retreat of the snowcaps on the summits of Retezat, in the Southern Carpathians, and the spruce line gaining altitude, but losing the lower altitude areas to the expansion of the beech forests. Other shepherds confirm it. Moreover, some wild cherry trees and plum trees in the high orchards blossom and ripen half a month earlier, apparently influencing bee keeping.

All this might sound like false science, but such observations have a scientific value. Cristophe Randin says that the concept is named citizens’ science.

Democratic science

In the post-truth era of Trumpism and of negationism, citizens gather up democratically and serve the scientific truth. It bears the name of citizens’ science of climate change. And it is a new and democratic approach to biosphere research. It comes as a version of big data analysis and it assesses the impact of climate change on thousands of species and their habitats. “The observations on biodiversity can be made by the public; observers that worked for 10 years on gathering data become experts or connoisseurs of different plant or animal patterns, however they do not know statistics or other methodologies,” says Randin. And, he underlines, “this is where PhDs from universities come in and mine the data.”

Such data collection and interpretation of results are part of the science of phenology.

Phenology is the study of the timing of annually recurring natural events. In seasonal climates both plants and animals have distinct seasonal cycles and it is relatively simple to record the beginning and sometimes the end of these events known as phenophases. A tree will have phenophases such as leaf budburst, leaf and flower development in spring, fruiting in summer, and leaf coloration and leaf fall in autumn. “Anybody with a reasonable ability to identify species and the time to make regular observations can contribute to phenological recording.” And many phases are temperature dependent. “Consequently many species have clearly shown changes in phenology as a consequence of rising temperatures in recent decades. […] The sheer volume and duration of phenological data have made them useful for studying the effects of a changing climate on biological systems.” (Andrew Millington, Mark Blumler, Udo Schickhoff ed., The SAGE Handbook on Biogeography, SAGE Publications, 2011, p. 236)

Citizens’ science and phenology are “in the trend of big data; if you have a big amount of data you will get closer to scientific accuracy and be able to make models for plant reactions to climate change,” says Randin. “It is not leisure, nor a joke; it is accepted by many scientific journals, data collected by citizens can do hardcore science for very long periods of time,” adds Randin taking pride in the 30,000 valuable phenological observations collected in a decade for the project Phenoclim.

“Academic research in ecology is usually temporary and opportunistic: it depends on quick funding, it lasts around 3-5 years, it ignores the cryosphere (over 3000 meters / 9,850 ft. altitude), and it has no continuity. Probably the most notable exception is the research carried out at the University of Colorado at Boulder that spread over four decades,” says Randin.

America vs. Europe, Rockies vs. Alps

At Niwot Ridge in the American Rockies, “we are also finding that plants are moving uphill into talus areas,” says, for 2C, Professor Katharine Suding from the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado Boulder.

However, the professor thinks it is likely not just a temperature effect, “but the lengthening of the growing season. Microbes that live in the unvegetated talus are important helpers to the plants able to move into these stressful areas,” Suding adds.

Quite differently than in the European mountains, “it looks like the plants lower down are not being affected, in fact diversity has been quite stable. Trees are not moving up much here as colonization is limited by the increasing dry hot summers,” says Suding.

The trends in temperature variability in the Alps are comparable to the differences recorded in the Himalayas; there is a 0.6 centigrade increase per decade warming of the average alpine temperature at least in the Swiss, Austrian and German Alps, says Ecoclimatology Professor Annette Menzel from Technische Universität München while summarizing her decade long research at the Schneefernerhaus research facility on the German summit of Zugspitze (2,962 meters / 9,718 ft.).

But, Menzel says, the fact that affects vegetation to a larger extent is the variability of temperature between seasons and between different areas. Menzel worked for the 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC on deriving footprint of climate change on nature and she observed a direct link between zones of higher temperature and radical changes in nature: earlier spring, longer vegetation periods, changes in productivity, changes in the ranges of species, invasive vegetation and different composition of ecosystems.

After research of phenological data of different endemic species at various altitudes in the Bavarian Alps, Menzel came to the conclusion that “for forest vegetation, the growing season is lengthening: one degree increase in average temperature translates into two more weeks of growing season.” Species react differently, “beech might profit from this longer growing season, while spruce does not,” she adds.

An interesting situation is the fact that local Bavarian farmers did not change the days of hey cutting over the last decades whereas flowering does change. As opposed to Carpathian shepherds or phenology observers mentioned by Randin, “that means for us that farmers do not track climate change as they could do,” mentions Menzel. This should be looked more into detail in the future, she concludes.

Paradox of hope on a warming planet

Conversely, local communities in Nepal, together with UNDP experts from the Ecosystems-Based Adaptation in Mountain Program, have observed that some of the non-timber forest products that were promoted, such as Timur are plants that do better in cooler temperatures. “Due to rising temperatures, especially in the lower altitudes in the Panchase region where we work in Nepal, we are promoting cultivation of Timur to communities located in over 2,000 meters (6,500 ft.) above sea level,” says Tine Rossing, Knowledge Manager at the UNDP.

It is a real plan of adaptation. “As Timur currently grows best in altitudes ranging from 1,200 – 2000 meters (3,900 – 6,500 ft.), we figure that if the temperature increases, the communities in that altitude will have a relatively resilient livelihood income for the longer-term,” concludes Rossing.

Just the same, the upward shift of grazers to higher altitudes in the Eastern European mountains is plain climate change adaptation, thinks Randin. And he adds, “in some regions of the Alps the subalpine grasslands are disappearing due to non-use abandonment and the forest is invading. So the availability of open areas for grazing is decreasing at the moment.” Nonetheless, mountain communities in the Alps are far from being dependent on animal husbandry or subsistence agriculture.

“Climate change can be seen as an opportunity. There is an increasing demand for alternative energies and there is a higher productivity of [sustainable] biomass in the forest,“ adds Randin.

One thing that is different in alpine areas in the United States, mentions Suding at her turn, “is that people do not live and utilize them as intensively as in Europe. The main connection made to people is via biodiversity conservation, recreation, and downstream water (the last is a very large concern in the Western US).”

Why is it necessary to research biodiversity in mountain areas? Over 25% of the plants in alpine areas are above the tree line, on the alpine meadows. These latter ones are spread over only 3% of Europe’s surface. The tree line limit is there where the average temperature is at over 6.5 centigrade for at least three months of the year; above this line there is the alpine zone. On Zugspitze, for instance, where Professor Menzel is researching, there are no less than 164 endemic species on an apparently poor dry rocky plateau.

There was indeed a long period of work on glaciology, paleontology, but much less on ecology at altitudes of over 1200 meters, mentions Randin.

Mountain regions support many different ecosystems and have among the highest species richness globally, which play a significant role in biospheric carbon storage and carbon sequestration, they are “water towers” for billion of people, are home to numerous indigenous communities, experience higher warming temperatures, and altogether show a higher vulnerability to climate change. It is the reason for which the Mountain Partnership called upon the Contracting Parties to the UNFCCC to address in an explicit manner the key role and vulnerability of all mountainous areas in the meetings following the Paris Accord and a substantive way in its implementing – in a manner comparable with other very vulnerable areas such as small islands and low lying coastal areas.

Knowledge and scientific initiatives have to be exported, ends Randin; “[…] each mountain has its own climate, each mountain range might react differently to climate change. There is thus a need to export and to multiply this kind of initiatives and maybe something could be done.” Beyond their majestic greatness, mountains show an incredible fragility.

Khaled Osta Esmael was an environmental, cultural and social journalist in Damascus. He used to cover only these topics since “we weren’t allowed by the regime to cover anything political; we did not have this freedom; if you wanted to cover political stuff you had to be a state journalist (reporter working for a state-owned medium, n.n.)”. Any journalist that wanted to report on political realities or analyze politics in any way had to be connected to “the Palace”.

After March 2011 when the Syrian Revolution commenced, “we broke the wall between us, journalists, and the political topics. ” Journalists had to talk about the war and, naturally, that implied politics. But they had not much experience, with the exception of the state media that had the use of political reporting, yet with a strong pro-Al-Assad twist.

Khaled is among the few journalists that gathered some skills after the war started and initiated his work as a trainer for younger reporters that learn to practice citizens’ journalism in Turkey and in the North of Syria, the part of the country that liberated itself from the Al-Assad regime – as to fall henceforth into deeper quagmires. Until 2013, Khaled covered political news on Syria for the Egyptian state TV, right after he quit being a correspondent for Radio France Internationale (RFI), the Arabic broadcast, in Syria. Eventually, he took refuge in Sweden.

Khaled reported before the revolution on the climatic conditions that contributed to displacements within Syria and finally to the social outburst of 2011. Between 2007 and 2010, Syria experienced the worst drought in its history of records. The drought was part of a trend of declining winter precipitation in North-Eastern Syria, that has been linked to climate change by some authors. Combined with natural resource mismanagement by the Assad regime, who subsidized water-intensive agriculture such as cotton-farming, and encouraged wasteful practices such as flood irrigation, this drought led to the loss of a significant percentage of Syria’s crop and rangeland, and the displacement of at least 2 million farmers and herders, many of whom fled to urban centers.

In short, from 2007 to 2010, a climate-exacerbated drought contributed to a mass internal displacement of peoples in Syria; that displacement further contributed to the instability that preceded the conflict, and that conflict is driving the current war and consequent refugee crisis.[1]

“I made a reportage about this in 2008, it was the reason I went to Copenhagen the next year,” says Khaled. “I was reporting on the farmers that left their lands because the water resources had finished there. And there was no rain because, as you said, global climate change. So they left their farms and went to Damascus and Aleppo to be workers.”

“While interviewing them I heard stories that they were millionaires; 10 years before they were earning a lot of money from their land. And the land was very productive.” In a decade however, everything changed radically. Productions turned poor and in a short while sad people from the North East flocked into the big cities. “They were sad, taking daily jobs in constructions.”

It was utterly unbelievable. “The government, the Assad regime, didn’t do anything for these people. They just didn’t care about them.”

This also strained the Syrian society before 2011. “Everything, all these elements, warmed up the country for revolution. The Eastern Syrians really suffered a lot and they rebelled against the regime; as an environmental journalist I mentioned the (drought) problem in the North East of Syria. These people were the real rebels.”

But aren’t they under ISIS control?

“They left or they were killed. Most of them left for Turkey, these are the ones in the Turkish camps. They ran away from the regime and ISIS at the same time. Now they are very poor.”

Journalism students are not that interested in geography, climate and the consequent situation before the revolution. However, environmental journalists do not report merely on nature, but also on democratic practices, essential for the ecology of the conflict. Those people were not able to negotiate and have their rights protected.

“Why I did this reportage? You will be surprised. I was afraid before, I couldn’t do it, but… there was a workshop with UNDP Syria, Denmark and the BBC, they were preparing for COP15, so, in collaboration with the government, they asked journalists to make environmental radio reportages. I was among them and I chose this topic and I was thinking … how I was free, how I was able to record those people; in Damascus they were living in big tents all around the city.

They were migrants.”

What is there to do now? Over the tragedy of the internal migrants and a changing climate, an infinitely more terrible tragedy ensued with Russians savagely bombing the North, ISIS controlling the “oil area” and still with a repressive regime in the capital.

“We could have done something, but the war didn’t listen to us.” Now that the refugees reached Europe and the world listens to them, “the situation got more complicated; the revolution changed into civil war and now into a proxy war: Iran with Russia and Hezbollah on one side and the Gulf states, USA, Turkey, on the other.

And where are the Syrians? The Syrians are either refugees or killed”.

Syrians are controlled by outside forces. “If they live with ISIS – ISIS are migrants, they are not locals but foreigners that occupied the country. In the areas controlled by the regime there is Russia and Hezbollah. We are under occupation.”

“What can I do as a person now?

Can I face Russia? All I can do is tell the truth to the people. We had a Skype call with this citizen journalist from Aleppo and he was telling parts of the truth to my students and I saw how much they were surprised. He is a journalist sitting in Aleppo under the Russian bombs and he was just telling what was going on, did not exaggerate, did not reduce, he was just telling his personal story and you can know and analyze the situation. Now it’s about the war between Russia and the USA.”

“We just need to stop the war, not to have refugees received or to give weapons to the rebels, stopping the war is the solution. Instead Russia pays all this money, spends all this energy and stress; they can just sit all at the table and find a solution.”

Humanity will look back on November 4, 2016, as the day that countries of the world shut the door on inevitable climate disaster and set off with determination towards a sustainable future.

The Paris Climate Change Agreement – the result of the most complex, comprehensive and critical international climate negotiation ever attempted – came into force today.

The Agreement is undoubtedly a turning point in the history of common human endeavor, capturing the combined political, economic and social will of governments, cities, regions, citizens, business and investors to overcome the existential threat of unchecked climate change.

Its early entry into force is a clear political signal that all the nations of the world are devoted to decisive global action on climate change.

Next week’s UN climate change conference in Marrakech represents a new departure for the international community, and the first meeting of the Paris Agreement’s governing body, known as the CMA, will take place during it on November 15.

This is a moment to celebrate. It is also a moment to look ahead with sober assessment and renewed will over the task ahead.

In a short time – and certainly in the next 15 years – we need to see unprecedented reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and unequalled efforts to build societies that can resist rising climate impacts.

The timetable is pressing because globally greenhouse gas emissions which drive climate change and its impacts are not yet falling – a fact which the Marrakech meeting must have at the front of its concerns and collective resolve.

This means that the world is not nearly on track to meet the Paris Agreement’s primary goal to limit global warming well below 2°C and as close to 1.5°C as possible to prevent dangerous climate tipping points, beyond which we may lose the ability to control the outcome.

Paris delivered a gift of hope for every man, woman and child on the planet. Yet today’s celebration can also rest on the assurance that the policies, technology and finance to achieve these goals not only exist, but are being deployed as never before.

The Paris Agreement swept into force on an unprecedented wave of action and pledges to build a global renewable energy industry, clean up existing power, production, construction and agricultural sectors and re-engineer economies and societies to be more resilient to the climate impacts already in the system.

Our collective ability to enact rapid change has changed for good because of the Paris Agreement, and particularly for the following reasons:

In Paris, Governments formally accepted to lead climate action and presented a global set of national plans for immediate action, pledging never to lower efforts and to raise their ambition over time. They are now accountable and have the means to drive change even faster through more, stronger, climate-friendly policies and incentives.

Within a few short years –ideally no later than 2018 – governments and parties will have completed the details of a rulebook which will measure, account for and review global climate action. This will ensure transparency on all sides needed to accelerate climate action by making sure that everyone is involved in the effort and is delivering to the best of their abilities.

Furthermore, Governments agreed to strengthen adequate technology and financial support to developing nations so they can build their own sustainable, clean energy futures.

Finally and importantly, non-party stakeholders are showing increased interest and commitment to lowering the carbon emissions and supporting governments and parties in their fight against the dire effects of climate change.

We expect the Marrakech COP 22 conference to accelerate work on the rulebook and to see emerge a definable pathway for developed countries to materialize the flow of USD $100 billion per year by 2020 in support of climate action by developing ones.

Very large-scale reallocations of investment are necessary. UN estimates show that achieving sustainable development will require USD $5-7 trillion a year, a large slice of which must fund the transition to a low-carbon, resilient world economy. To fulfill these investment needs, we will need to look at creative funding options, beyond the traditional ones and in which both public and private sector flows are aligned and scaled-up.

This, too, is happening but needs to speed up. UN data show global financial flows over the past few years ratcheting up to the point where one trillion dollars a year should be achievable in the near future. This means governments, the multilateral and the private sector raising and allocating tens of billions of dollars at a time towards climate investments.

The foundations of the Paris Agreement are solid and other key features of humanity’s new home are starting to rise. Yet, we cannot and we must not rest until the roof is in place. This November in Marrakesh we will make sure it will be in place, sooner rather than later.

]]>http://2celsius.net/paris-agreement-enters-into-force/feed/0China and US Bring Early Paris Entry into Force Big Step Closerhttp://2celsius.net/china-and-us-bring-early-paris-entry-into-force-big-step-closer/
http://2celsius.net/china-and-us-bring-early-paris-entry-into-force-big-step-closer/#respondSat, 03 Sep 2016 19:24:59 +0000http://2celsius.net/?p=1402Ratification of the Paris Climate Change Agreement by China and the United States – the world’s top two emitters of greenhouse gases – has brought its rapid entry into force a big step closer, reads an UNFCCC press release.

“I would like today to thank China and the United States for ratifying this landmark agreement—an agreement on which rests the opportunity for a sustainable future for every nation and every person,” said Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

“The earlier that Paris is ratified and implemented in full, the more secure that future will become, “she added.

The Paris Agreement enters into force on the 30th day after the date on which at least 55 Parties to the Convention accounting in total for at least an estimated 55 % of total global emissions have deposited their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession with the UN Depositary, in New York.

Today’s announcement by President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping, in which both countries have announced they have deposited their instruments of ratification with the UN Secretary-General, puts the balance at just over 39 percent of the global total, based on the information from countries provided to the UN in accordance with the decision related to entry into force of the Paris Agreement.

“Bringing the Paris Agreement into force underlines that the momentum and international solidarity witnessed in 2015 continues into 2016 among big and small nations and among rich and poorer countries,” said Ms Espinosa.

“The UN Secretary General’s special event in New York on 21 September offers a further, focused opportunity for others to join this wave of ambition and optimism towards a better and sustainable world,” she added.

HFCs and Aviation

China and the United States also announced today that they were working together to secure a comprehensive and ambitious amendment of a sister treaty—the Montreal Protocol—when governments meet in Kigali, Rwanda in October.

The amendment is aimed at managing down the use of chemicals called Hydroflurocarbons (HFCs) that are now being used in refrigeration systems such as air conditioners and which are potent greenhouse gases in their own right.

The two countries said they wanted to secure not only an internationally-agreed phase-down of HFCs but an early ‘freeze’ date so that the phase-down starts sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile the United States and Chinese leaders also announced backing for action on aviation emissions under the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) at its meeting later this month.

Under ICAO, governments will decide whether to agree a market-based mechanism that can assist in encouraging aircraft operators to bring down greenhouse gases from planes.

China and the United States said today that they plan to be early participants in a voluntary pilot phase if the decision goes through at the ICAO conference.

“I would like to commend China and the US for these two additional announcements. While the Paris Agreement is the main vehicle for action on climate change, it is clear that all international agreements need to work in tandem in order to realize our shared goals and aims,” she said.

The new announcements by China and the United States come in advance of the G20 Summit and the next round of UN climate negotiations—known as COP22—to be held in Marrakech, Morocco in November.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon invited leaders from all countries to New York to deposit their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession. The event also provides an opportunity to any country to publicly commit to do so.

In his invitation, Mr Ban said: “The next step in our collective journey to a low-carbon, climate-resilient future is to ensure the rapid entry into force of the Paris Agreement.”

The objective of the Paris Agreement is to limit global warming well below 2°C and as close to 1.5°C as possible, to increase economic and social ability to adapt to extreme climate, and to direct the scale and speed of global financial flows to match the required path to very low-emission, climate-resilient development.

Along with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, Paris forms part of a new and universal vision for a sustainable future around which the global community converged in 2015.

The unity of common purpose captured across these three agreements will now need to leverage an unprecedented scale and depth of national and international cooperative action involving all actors at all levels and in all regions of the world.

]]>http://2celsius.net/china-and-us-bring-early-paris-entry-into-force-big-step-closer/feed/080% of EU oil imports supplied by non-European companieshttp://2celsius.net/80-of-eu-oil-imports-supplied-by-non-european-companies/
http://2celsius.net/80-of-eu-oil-imports-supplied-by-non-european-companies/#respondFri, 15 Jul 2016 08:30:17 +0000http://2celsius.net/?p=1377Non-European companies supply four-fifths of Europe’s oil imports, with Russian firms supplying more than one-third (36%) of imported crude, a new study on Europe’s foreign oil dependency has found. Just two of the top 10 oil suppliers to the EU are European, and most of our imported oil is supplied from unstable countries.

Rosneft and Lukoil, both Russian-owned companies, account for the highest share of crude oil imports to the EU, according to the study by Cambridge Econometrics for Transport & Environment. Cambridge Econometrics produced a map showing trade flows of oil into Europe. The ‘Visegrad’ countries (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic) plus Greece have a particularly high risk of disruption of their oil imports.

Laura Buffet, oil officer at T&E, said: “Europe’s profligate use of oil is filling the pockets of big oil companies in unstable countries including Russia and Libya. Transport’s thirst for imported oil and diesel costs every citizen around €300 a year – money that flows out of the European economy.”

Europe’s dependence on crude imports has increased sharply in the past 15 years, as has its dependence on diesel imports which doubled between 2001 and 2014 to €35 billion. At the same time, EU domestic production and crude oil imports from countries with a very low risk of geopolitical instability, such as Norway, have decreased – worsening Europe’s energy insecurity.

Transport is oil’s biggest customer, driving two-thirds of the demand for final petroleum products in Europe. Measures to decarbonise transport would deliver substantial economic, environmental and energy security benefits because burning oil is directly linked to CO2 emissions. According to a previous Cambridge Econometrics study, driving the shift to electric vehicles would lead to a 1% increase in EU GDP, create up to 2 million additional jobs and reduce emissions from cars and vans 83% by 2050.

The Commission is scheduled to publish a European Strategy for Low Emission Mobility on 20 July, along with announcing the agreement with member states on how much it proposes to cut emissions from the transport, housing and agriculture sectors, which are not part of the emissions trading system (the so-called Effort Sharing Decision). T&E is calling on the European Commission to: propose ambitious new CO2 targets for cars, vans and truck for 2025; develop a comprehensive strategy to drive electrification of transport; take measures to cut shipping and aviation emissions; and end all support for unsustainable biofuels.

“Environmental protection and energy security are two sides of the same same coin. Ambitious plans to decarbonise transport will slash oil demand and ensure our money stays here, driving innovation, boosting jobs and reducing energy insecurity. This is a win-win for Europe,” concluded Buffet.

The 2016 edition of Green Week focused on the theme ‘investing for a greener future.’ Participants discussed how to promote the role of green investments in achieving sustainable development and agreed on a range of measures to advance the European Union (EU) Urban Agenda, the blue economy and the transition to a low-carbon future, among other areas.

Activities and events took place throughout Europe during Green Week, an annual occasion to discuss European environment policy that ran from 30 May to 3 June. Each day of the week focused on different aspects of the overall theme: investing in greener cities (Monday); investing in the countryside (Tuesday); investing in our needs (Wednesday); investing in our oceans (Thursday); and investing for future generations (Friday).

Twenty-eight ministers responsible for urban matters agreed on principles of the EU Urban Agenda at the European Commission (EC) Ministerial Meeting on Urban Issues, with a focus on ‘Better Regulation, Better Funding and Better Knowledge.’ The ‘Pact of Amsterdam’ endorses the development of 12 partnerships to address urban challenges related to inclusion of migrants and refugees, air quality, urban poverty, housing, circular economy, jobs and skills in the local economy, climate adaptation, energy transition, sustainable use of land and nature-based solutions, urban mobility, digital transition, and innovative and responsible public procurement.

According to the EC, the EU Urban Agenda is expected to contribute to the implementation of the SDGs, particularly SDG 11 (Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable), and to the Third UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Development (Habitat III) process on the global ‘New Urban Agenda.’ The Urban Agenda is also expected to help advance action on renewable energy and energy efficiency, including on SDG 7 (Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all).

A high-level event in Brussels, Belgium, discussed how to improve access to finance for European companies in green sectors, with the aim of accelerating a transition to a low-carbon, circular economy. European Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Karmenu Vella said, “business culture has to shift towards sustainability, from the tiniest of SMEs, all the way up to fund managers. For the transition to happen we need to give incentives and shift towards a financial system that considers environmental impacts when making decisions.” Participants discussed the role of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) in mobilizing finance for green projects and highlighted the role of entrepreneurs in the reuse and recycling of products and finding new revenue streams, among other topics. The event resulted in a Communication with concrete proposals for the future of the EFSI, such as scaling up resources for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and exploring the use of an EFSI-type model for investments in developing countries.

CEOs participating in the ‘Retail Forum for Sustainability,’ a multi-stakeholder platform to exchange best practices on sustainability, released a ‘Commitment to the Circular Economy.’ The Retailers’ Environmental Action Programme (REAP) commits signatories to over 100 actions to transform the retail sector, including on increased energy efficiency; food waste; product design, certification and labeling; and sustainable sourcing. Individual commitments are compiled in an online database that will be monitored and reported on over the next three years.

Events on the blue economy addressed the importance of healthy oceans for a healthy economy and of tackling marine litter on land through a circular economy action plan that recommends production processes that decrease plastic waste and increase plastic reuse. The day’s events featured examples on sustainable fishing, sustainable tourism and renewable energy, among others. An event in Greece encouraged the public to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle while an event in France focused on marine renewable energy.

Green Week concluded with an event titled ‘SDGs for a Green Future: Investing for Future Generations,’ which convened on 3 June in Vienna, Austria. Participants discussed how implementing the 2030 Agenda can place Europe on a low-carbon, circular economy path. Austrian Minister of the Environment Andrä Rupprechter and Vella stressed the importance of a longer-term perspective in the 2030 Agenda. Vella explained, “2030 is the day after tomorrow, if not already tomorrow.”